I'm still working of the simple act of greasing the front wheel bearings on my '12. Thought I could do the job in an hour or two. Well........
After finding the races and some of the balls to be badly deteriorated, I ordered new parts. Thank you Bob's and Lang's.
But being a thrifty sort in the Steve Jelf tradition, I only ordered new balls as necessary to replace the ones that had damage. That was about 30% of the outer (small) balls and 15% of the inner (large) balls.
When the new balls arrived, I took a minute to measure them to be certain that their sizes matched the old balls. Glad I did that !
The new balls were amazingly consistent in size. But the old balls that I thought were usable turned out to be all over the park in actual diameter. For instance, the diameters of the new small balls were mostly 0.3750, with two balls as 0.3749 and one ball at 0.3748. By contrast, the old balls ranged from 0.3732 down to 0.3720. And the balls out of the right wheel were consistently larger than those from the left wheel.
Based on this information, I ordered all new balls. It's hard to imagine that the old balls could have worn down in diameter while still retaining such a nice surface finish. The most likely explanation is that either the original equipment was not consistent or maybe the originals had been replace sometime in the last 100 years by lower quality balls.
Dick
I hear the cheap thing. I found out most times cheap ends up costing more time and money. Glad things have worked out for you.
I agree with Tyrone.
Don't think that Ford would have allowed any discrepancy! Concerning ball brg. Dia's.
Many parts re-manufacturers may have used poor materials back in the day. In the 70's offshore manufacturers were producing some of our parts too. So it is highly possible to find some of those in amoung your wheel bearings. You are not the omly one to try and replace SOME of the roller balls, Dick.
Regarding trying to get by with only replacing SOME of the balls:
I can't help it. Runs in my family. I remember that my grandmother's ketchup bottle never went below 1/4 full. It just seemed to get thinner and thinner. When you could see through the ketchup the family would shame her into getting a new bottle. She also saved her birthday cards. Erased the signature, put her own on the card and sent it on to somebody else. Sometimes you got your own card back next year.
Dick
It's called depression (era) thinking. I learnt if from my parents.
My dad used to save bent nails in old baby food jars. When he needed a nail, he pulled one out of the jar, straightened it out, and used it.
Saving bent nails is not so bad, they will work. But to replace some balls in a bearing is makeshift just to get you home. You should not even put a new cone in an old race or the other way around. Sometimes the best thrift is to do the job right. Batteries are another issue, if you have two batteries in a series, if one goes bad, you are better off to replace both.
Seems pretty basic to me. Bearings (balls and races) are by necessity made out of pretty good material ref. wear and hardness, and if just two, or three, or four, etc, etc, are replaced, and several or all of those are a thousandth or two larger than the others, those few replaced balls are going to be doing all, or at least most of the work. Depending upon how those few slightly larger balls are located within the dozen or so in the bearing (probably randomly) this situation could be either "kinda' bad', or very bad! Just my thoughts,....YMMV,.....harold
Man Alive Dick!
I can't believe what I just read. Give that old car a little respect. It deserves some new parts and especially in the hubs that will be carrying you along the road at a couple of miles per hour!
It would be a shame to ruin some good hubs let alone having an accident if the bearings should decide to lock up some time.
If you can't afford some new parts I'll send you some of my good used Timken ones.
Just saying. No Disrespect intended..
The vendor should have called you up when he got the order and offered some advice. A person in this business is believed to be a T expert. If it was a clerk that took the order, I can understand, but a bearing is a critical part, and maybe the vendor should hold some classes for his clerical workers as a service to his customers.
Once a year i remove my front wheel grease cup's and give each 7 pump's of soft gun grease.I then screw the grease cup's on all the way and jack up each wheel for inspection.What did Ford do?? Bud.
Grease cup,......do you mean the hub cap?
Harold,Yes and i think that is why they are made threaded. If mearly used as a dust cap both caps and hub's could have been made much cheaper? Bud.
Gotcha' Bud. Once the space between inner and outer bearing is filled with grease, screwing the grease filled hub cap all the way in would add grease to inner as well as outer bearing, right? Lot easier than taking the wheel off to get to the inner bearing! Great tip,.....harold